Description of problem: Wireless hardware on Acer 5920 laptop (iwl3945) gets switched off when the wireless key is pressed, or the laptop dies due to a flat battery. When this happens it is impossible to re-enable the wireless from Linux. My only choice is to reboot to Vista, which I fortunately decided to dual boot rather than go pure linux. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Fedora 8 2.6.25.9-40.fc8 #1 SMP Fri Jun 27 16:25:53 EDT 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux iwl3945-firmware-2.14.1.5-2 How reproducible: 1) start linux 2) connect to wireless network 3) allow laptop to power fail 4) restart laptop, notice that wireless button does not light up 5) following messages appear in dmesg: iwl3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.26kds iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2008 Intel Corporation iwl3945: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 3945ABG iwl3945: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 23 802.11a channels phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-3945-rs' iwl3945: Radio disabled by HW RF Kill switch
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This bug is no longer applicable to Fedora 10. Using fedora 10 live CD wireless can be switch back on (by turning of wireless in network manager, then re-enabling). Still not ideal, it should be switch on during boot if the network manager has it as enabled. I will raise a new bug to cover that on Fedora 10.